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Show I Famous Forts in U. S. History I - By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ! When the Piutes Rode the War Trail I LIfe was never dull In Nevada , ,e sixties. there wusn t troub e i amuD, ,e rough characters of the silver mining onmps. the I dlans could always be counted upon t0 m a few seall, an hurn some cabins. Karly In 1 tl,e-v n" i so active that the settlers had to ap peal to California for help. ; Several hundred volunteers immedl-! immedl-! atelv rode over from the gold camps 1 to help their silver-miuing brethten Hut more important was a force oi 150 regulars from Alcatraz Island, ea by cu,.t. Ja,per Stewart of the Th rd artillery and Capt. E. F. Flm of the Sixth infantry, which took the field and formed the nucleus for a force or 800 men that kept after the Indians until thev were brought to bay near Pvramid'lake. There a three-hour battle was fought on June 3, and the Indians were defeated. The soldiers remained In the region until the middle of July and put In their time by building Fort Churchill on the Carson river, 35 miles below Carson City. This fort was the most important of several that wer.3 built In the territory and when the Piutes hroke out again In 18G2 It was made military headquarters for the Third California volunteers, under the command com-mand of Colonel Conners, commandant command-ant of the military district of Utah and Nevada. For the next six years the Piutes kept up a desultory warfare war-fare and expeditions were constantly being sent out from Fort Churchill - against them so that It Is no overstatement over-statement to say that the settlement of Nevada might have been delayed for many years had It not been for the preseuce of this fort. Fort Churchill is also noted for its connection with another historic occasion. occa-sion. It was on the route of the Pony express and one day when "Pony Bob" Haslatu, one of the riders, rid-ers, arrived at Fort Churchill, the man who was to carry the pouches on to the next station was unable to go. So "Pony Bob" took his place and this resulted In his famous ride of 380 miles with scarcely 11 hours rest from the time he started until his job of "getting the mall through" was done, over every mile of which he was In constant danger of death at the hands of hostile Indians. By 1872 the troubles with the Piutes Pi-utes were definitely over, the Pony express was a thing of the past, the ganison at Fort Churchill was withdrawn with-drawn and Its career as the protector of an Infant state was at an end. |